Kenneth Cole: Kenneth Cole

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Loans originated by SofiBankNA, member FDIC, Terms and Conditions Apply, NMLS, 696891. Fast Funds term apply at sofi.com/gyros. Hey, really quick before we start the show, the how I built this book is now a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, so thank you to all of you who ordered it and for your support of this show. If you haven't picked it up and you want to learn the secrets of how to develop an entrepreneurial mindset, how I built this the book is for you. It's now available wherever books are sold and in most countries around the world, or by visiting howibuiltthis.com or gyros.com. Thanks. What happened in 94 was the landscape changed. When I started my business, there was maybe 70 or 80 departments or chains in the United States. All of a sudden, 10 years later, there's maybe 15 or 20. Consolidation. After consolidations and some bankruptcies. Yeah. And I said to myself that these guys are going to need to find economies. I thought at a certain point, they'd buy similar shoes under their own labels and I'm not in business anymore. You didn't think that they would just continue to buy Kenneth Cole shoes and sell them? I didn't. And if you don't see my designs like a train the forest, I'm always as good as you know me to be. Right. And if I'm not out there, then I don't exist. From NPR, it's how I built this, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raaz and on the show today, how Kenneth Cole launched his shoe business set of a 40-foot truck in Midtown Manhattan and grew the business into one of the best known brands in the fashion industry. This message is a paid partnership with Apple Card. I've noticed that a lot of people we talk to on this show, founders, entrepreneurs, creatives, they spend a surprising amount of time thinking about systems. 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So they asked, over 100,000 people, their hopes and their fears, and are publishing what they find, even the uncomfortable parts. Me? I've got my own hard question about AI. Here it is. If everyone has access to something that can help them write the business plan, build the prototype, analyze the market, maybe even come up with the idea. It separates the people who actually build something from everyone else. I don't have a clean answer yet, so I've been sitting with it with Claude. There's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at Claude.ai/hibt. One thing I've learned from talking to hundreds of founders is that as a business grows, complexity can become a huge problem. Suddenly, you've got different systems for finance, inventory, customers, operations, and they don't always talk to each other. If I were building a company today, I'd want all of that in one place, with AI helping me make sense of it, and that's exactly what NetSuite next is designed to do. 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And it's meant that a lot of big companies have increasingly been doing that, even at the risk of alienating a certain segment of their customer base. But long before it became fashionable to weigh in on controversial topics, the shoe company Kenneth Cole was doing exactly that. In 1986, when the AIDS crisis was just coming into focus, Kenneth Cole began to take out full-page ads and magazines promoting AIDS awareness and research. And this was at a time when many people in America refused to even acknowledge the disease. In that same year, 1986, the company ran a campaign calling for strict gun control. In 1992, for strong abortion rights. In '93, for equal civil rights for members of the LGBTQ community. And throughout all those campaigns, the brand kept growing. In fact, by the mid-2000s, the company's revenue hit over half a billion dollars. Kenneth Cole, the company's namesake, started out with very little money, but he managed to turn the brand into one of the best-known American fashion labels. Kenneth was born in Brooklyn in the 1950s. His dad was in the shoe business, but following in those footsteps, was not part of Kenneth's plan instead. I was going to be the shortstop for the New York Mets. Where's he really? - Most of the kids in your neighborhood probably, right? - And then I'd wake up every other day. Once a day, and I realized that was not what could happen. Actually, my first job was selling peanuts to Shae Stadium. I don't know if you know that. - Wow. - It was also a creative endeavor getting that job because it was during the World Series in 1969. - Yeah, the Miracle Mets. - And there were no lights, so there were no night games. And they needed kids to work during the day. And the city was very tough, so they insisted that the students all had notes from their principles that they could take that time off from school. So I got my principal to give me a note saying that he thought it was a worthwhile cultural experience and he endorsed my employment at Shae Stadium. - So you got to see the Mets playing in the 1969 World Series? - I did. And I also, by the way, I leveraged that job to get one at Madison Square Garden where I got to see the Old Indian Ranger Games. - And tell me a little bit about your parents. So you first of all, what did your parents do for a living? Do they both work? - No, my mother for a little bit did some charity work. My father was an entrepreneur, he was in different businesses. He was later on, he was in that shoe business. He had a small shoe factory in a very tough part in New York at the time, Co Williamsburg. - A tough part of New York called Williamsburg, wow. - Yeah. - Not so tough today. - Interesting, I think it's a change. - Yeah. And what was the name of the factory? - El Greco. - Is that mean the Greek? - It means the Greek in Spanish. - Yeah. And what was that name, where did that come from? - I don't, I think he had acquired a small business and I think that's what it was, and eventually he assumed it. So he made shoes and sold them in department stores at the time, women's shoes. But the last thing on my mind was, the last thing I would have imagined myself doing, and the least masculine thing I could have imagined myself doing was going to the women's shoe business. So it wasn't something I ever contemplated. - What was your relationship like with your dad? - It was good, he was a tough guy, he was a Marine. - World War II veteran. - Was he deployed overseas? - He was, he served in the Philippines, he was a gunner. - Wow. - And it was on several missions. And he was relentless, he was very determined. I learned a lot from him in many ways, what to do in some cases, what not to do. He was always, he was working much more than he wasn't. And I was, I wasn't reflected upon that being generational 'cause I made a point to be the opposite with my kids to the degree I was able to, but work came first and second and we were often third. But he was focused, he was determined and he was, he was relentless. - So when you set out to go to college in the early 70s, you went to Emory, I take it, like you didn't really contemplate, eventually working with your dad. - No, truthfully, I went to school thinking I'd probably become a lawyer and I studied political science. And law was something I believed would create interesting alternatives for me going down the road. So I was admitted to a couple of schools I did apply. And then that summer my father had his superintendant who was running the factory at the time resigned to go into competitions. And that factory was the proverbial hand that fed us. So I felt an obligation that summer to immerse myself in it. And so we're in the business to the degree that I could. - What your dad said to you, he said, I need you to help me out at the factory. - He didn't say that, he was too proud, my mother kind of encouraged it and he welcomed it. And I wasn't thinking that this would be something I would jump in with book feed. But I knew, once I started doing it, I also knew that I needed to commit to it, to learn it and to quickly have the respect of the people I was working with. And I did, I learned it. And I kept, I was fascinated by it and I kept gravitating towards the sample room where I watched all these components, piece of leather and plastic that was the heel or wood. And then a metal shape of a foot that became was the last and how all these things put together in a certain way became a shoe. - How was it that your whole life you were around this world and exposed to it? And then, 'cause I agree, I would find it fascinating to just see the pieces of cut leather and the wooden heel and people sewing the pieces together. But why do you think you began to see it that way at the age of 22? - I think I wanted to understand not just what my father did, but what was behind the curtain and how did this work and what made it so distinctive and why was he able to do it differently than other people. And so I was, and I realized very quickly that what distinguished, what he did from whatever he else did was what happened in the sample room. So that's where I spent much of my summer that year and I learned how to make patterns and how shoes were constructed and how they were crafted. - And by the way, I just think of this as a dad myself. Like, if my kid joined my business, which I don't want them to, want them to do the wrong thing, but I would be so proud of what he's like just gushing. It would be amazing. What's your dad, that doesn't strike me that your dad was that kind of guy, but he must have been pretty proud that his kid was there in this company. - No, he was, but he, you know, he pushed me as hard as he felt he could in the way that he would. - Well, how would he push you? - It was always how big is big and how good is good and he was careful with the compliments and the encouragement. But I know he was proud and I learned how to make shoes in his factory for our company. - In that six year period where you worked for your dad's business and really start to understand the business, like two years in you were involved in launching a whole new line of shoes, I think they're called candies designed to start targeting young women. What was that initiative, had that come about? - So we were making shoes in Brooklyn and there were a hundred steps that went into making the most simple shoe. And the slightest thing that would go wrong, if you're missing any of those 100 plus components, we're not in business anymore. And in the best case scenario, you can only make so many pair of shoes in the worst case you're out of business, you have nothing. So, so that business model I struggled with. And then we went over to Europe and bought some shoes and started selling them here in the United States. - What was it? - Yeah, what did it was like a Mary Jane, like? - It was a piece of leather that was stapled onto a polypropylene bottom with a high heel. And it was what Olivia Newton John wore in the movie "Crees." - Oh yeah. And what you identified though, like you found those shoes in Europe and you said, hey, we should sell shoes like these. - Actually, I think my father and I found them. And then we came back and I started to sell them. - But you weren't making them. You were still importing these shoes. - We started importing them. And then it became very clear that in that sort of a business model, if you do a lot of business, you make a ton of money. If you do a little bit, you make less. But you don't have all the overhead that we had in a domestic shoe factory. And it was very compelling. So we converted the business eventually to that. That became the business because it grew very quickly. - So he shut down the factory part and focused on importing shoes and then reselling them. - Correct. - When did that happen? Would you remember what year? - So if I joined the business '76, maybe '79, '80? - So this was the new model and you were now focused on importing shoes that you could identify mainly from Europe, I guess. And it actually boosted the business, the business grew as a result of that. - Exponentially and very quickly. So eventually, initially the factory became a warehouse, the existing factory, and then eventually we moved to a bigger facility and then left and vacated. Those offices in Williamsburg. - So clearly you catch the bug, the shoe bug. After six years of working with your dad, this becomes something not just interesting, but you see this as your future, you decide to leave. In 1982, to start your own shoe company, I guess you're around 28 years old at the time. Why did you decide to leave your dad's business and go off on your own? - He and I didn't agree on a lot of things and I didn't have the right to not be 100% compliant and supportive and I felt that I was young enough and probably not even enough that I could just go and do it and figure it out independently. So I woke up one day and started, that's what I'm gonna do. - Did you and your dad argue a lot? Or was it more that your dad was my way of the highway and you didn't argue with him? - I would argue, but invariably he had his way that he felt things should be done. And then I'd say to myself why am I putting him through this and why am I putting this through it? So then at a certain point I figured my relationship is only gonna get better with him if I do this independently. So when you told your dad you wanna start your own thing and you're leaving, was he sad, was he hurt, was he supportive? - He was too proud to be visibly hurt anyway and he wasn't supportive but he at the same time he was supportive but he wasn't encouraging. Maybe that's the better way to put it. And when I did tell him I was gonna leave one day which was shocking to him, he had said you'll be back. It's very hard out there and you're gonna be back with his message at which point I knew there was no way that was gonna happen. So he says I'm gonna leave your office open for you 'cause I know you'll be back. - So when you said hey, I wanna start my own shoe thing he didn't say how, I'll write you a check to help get you started. - No, not just the opposite. And I'm not sure I would have taken it. If he had either, because I became equally proud. - So you wanted to start your own shoe company. Obviously you had experience now and some connections to factories but how did you have, did you have any money to start it? - Very little, but what I did was I went over to Italy 'cause that's where I had been working with Candies and and I found an agent who had a lot of credibility in the marketplace and that agent by nature of my relationship with that agent, I had probably more credibility than I was entitled to in the marketplace. - This is an agent who helped you find factories to make your shoes. - And everything was, I created everything at the time to be variable. And so the agent would get paid only if I did business and to the degree of the business they would make more. And this agent, I got open account, which was a big deal. - Like a line of credit? - A line of credit. And I learned very early on in my career that it's much easier to get credit from a factory that needs business in Italy than from an American bank that doesn't. - So you go to the factory and you could say, hey, I need to make this order and I'll pay you 90 days or something like that. - Yeah, and I had an arrangement with the bank where they were gonna give me 80% of the receivable once I invoiced it. So I would fly the goods to New York and we'd ship them out 'cause we'd pre-sold them. - And who did you buy? Did you sell them to the same places that you were selling? Candies to the same department stores? - Actually more elevated. My first year in business, I sold sacks, I sold maces, I sold booming delts, I sold burglars, I think. - You wanted this to be different than your dad's business. You wanted to make like higher end shoes that you would actually design yourself. - I wanted to create aspirational shoes for that aspirational woman. And I also did not want to compete with him. And I called the handful of customers that his current salesman were not calling on. And then my father said, okay, take 'em to Footwear News which is the only industry publication at the time and I did that as well. And I met with his woman Vivian Infantino who was the fashion editor and Vivian wrote a story about these first few shoes that I ever made and she said, buy this a new up-and-coming designer kind of cool, and I never looked at myself as that. - As a designer. - As a designer, I was, I created a little package of shoes I thought we could sell. - Yeah. - I didn't even have to draw yet. I taught myself how to draw over the years but at that point I didn't. - Did you ever think of yourself as a creative person when you were younger? - I think I had an interest in things that were creative but I never really looked in the mirror and saw that in me. You wouldn't look in the mirror and say, hey, I'm a designer, I'm an artist. - It wasn't something that I had ever aspired to. - So you have this, you're designing shoes and by the way, you have a co-founder again named Sam Edelman, but tell me about Sam. - Sam worked with me at Edel Greco and when I left, Sam said, if you leave, I'm going with you 'cause I'm not staying here. So I was, as much as I knew how great I have because Sam was also a good friend. I had, and how much fun it would be and how great it would be to have, I was reluctant to do it to my father 'cause I didn't want him to think that I took anybody or anything. So eventually when Sam made it clear he wasn't staying, Sam joined me. And then we worked in my apartment on the east side, I don't know for like several months, I don't think we went outside except when I went to Italy to make the shoes with two couple of tricks. - You worked in your apartment building that like creating a business plan? - We were creating, you know, the brand, we're setting up people to connect with, I guess, when I got to Italy. - The lawyer? - He's finding a lawyer, finding an accountant. - And by the way, how many shoes, how many different designs we're going to be in the first collection? 'Cause this is going to be women's shoes only and how many different, like, excuse what you have. - So maybe three constructions in each and maybe three or four or five colors? - Right, how many shoes did you, in total did you need to make? - So going to this process, I didn't have a sense of how many. I just knew that I could only show what I thought was great. I just wanted to create shoes that people wanted and hopefully have less than what the demand was but enough to make it all come together. - Well, the 1982 version of Kenneth Cole is not inspiring a lot of confidence in me right now. So, but I knew I'd figure it out. You know, people said to me, when I left my father guy, they said to me, well, what would you've done if it didn't work? And what I don't tell people, and I didn't tell people often is that I didn't know what it was. I knew I'd figure it out along the way and that it might keep changing. I wasn't sure what kinds of shoes and I wasn't sure who I was going to sell them to and I wasn't sure what the price would be but I knew somehow I would find product that people would want and I would deliver it in a way that people would find compelling. - Tell me about the name Kenneth Cole. I mean, it's a great name, it's your name. Was it the idea from the beginning to call it Kenneth Cole? - No, I couldn't take the chance of a made up name and finding out many, many months or years later whether it was acceptable or not through the trademark process because we didn't have Google in those days. But I also knew you can usually get away with your own name as long as it's your name. So I called it Kenneth Cole and I knew it would probably make my mother happy. So I did that and then I ran to Italy 'cause I didn't have credit and I figured I'd get credit from a shoe factory and I did. So I had a factory that agreed to do this. The factory was a single production line and then when the production I stopped at six o'clock when the workers went home is when Kaiser who was the motorist who I worked with and I would work all night long on the collections. - So once the workers would go home then you basically rent out the factory for your line. - Yeah, I mean because he had a relationship to the factory they let him have it and use it and he felt bad for this kid from New York who was desperate to have a collection within 30 days because we were getting close to market. - Sorry, just clever. You were to have this collection done in 30 days. - I did because first of all I knew that I needed to get to market quickly because I was gonna run out of money if I didn't and at the time I think 60% of businesses probably even more today start up businesses fail in the first year. 'Cause people underestimate the amount of time it takes before there's a return on that investment. So I knew I needed to get to market quickly and I knew that in December something that was gonna be a shoe show and I needed a collection by then. - This was market week shoe show in New York, right? - Yes, it was market week. - So you know you've got this deadline. you want to. preview your line of shoes at Marketweek, which is this convention in New York. This is in December of 1982. So what's the story? You want to get there and do you meet your deadline? Do you get your shoes done on time for the show? So I'm doing that, but in the process, I needed to be prepared to show the shoes because at the time there were two choices. It was the room at the Hilton Hotel, not a lot of individuality, not a lot of creativity, but it's not without significant costs because you had to take a room, you had to decorate the room, you needed models. That was what Marketweek was. It was a bunch of people with rooms at the Hilton Hotel. Yeah, about 1100 of them. Okay. 34's, 30's, some art companies prefer. And the buyers would just come and they'd walk the floors. They got a room, time to room. They'd go more likely into the rooms they knew, people they had gone business with. And the alternative was a big fancy showroom within a two-block radius of the Hilton Hotel, which clearly I didn't have the money of the time to do that either. So neither alternative really worked, and on a whim, I spoke to a person who was in the trucking business. And I asked them, if I could figure out, had a park, your truck on the corner of 6th Avenue, 56th Street, on December 2nd, 1982, would you lend it to me? What kind of truck like? A 40-foot trailer. You asked him to borrow it? Why? Because I was thinking that if I, maybe I could actually show the shoes in a truck on the corner, because everybody was going to be on that corner one point in the process. So instead of being at the Hilton or in a showroom, you would just have a truck parked there, a 40-foot truck, that people would go into the container of the truck and see your shoes. Correct. So I asked him, would you lend it to me? He said, you can't park a bicycle in New York for 10 minutes, rather only truck for three days, but if you could figure out how to do it, not only will I lend it to help you decorate it. So I called the mayor's office. So how does one get permission to park a 40-foot trailer on the corner of 6th Avenue, 56th Street? And the answer is, son, they don't. This is New York. We can permission only into two circumstances if you are utility companies servicing the streets or if you're a production company shooting for motion picture, because we're going through an aisle of New York campaign in the early 80s. Right. So that after the new winter stationery store changed the companies, the letterhead and kind of go in, the kind of co-production zinc. And then we filed for a permit centroid of the mayor's that afternoon, asking for permission to shoot a following motion picture called the birth of a shoe company. You filed a permit? File for a permit, yes. For a permit to shoot a film called the birth of a shoe company. Correct. Okay. Right. And we opened for business on December 2nd and we had two New York ladies and gentlemen conference at the fine mayor. Wait, they gave you the permit, they believed you, that you were going to, did you shoot a film? We did. It never quite got edited, but we did. Wait, you had camera people just filming? We had a director, sometimes it was filming as camera sometimes it was, it was cheaper that way. And we had stanchions and clean lights. Was anybody from the city like permitting office there to confirm that you were a legit film company or was it just 1982 and that people were just more trusting back then? They had no reason not to trust it, I guess. Right. I don't think anybody had done this before. And the cops were there like as part of your, you know, security detail provided by the city and they weren't like, eight, are you guys making a movie? I guess they wouldn't have asked that question. No, they weren't, but you know what did happen though? We had a union guy came by after our first day of shooting to make sure that this was a union crew. A union job, right. And we told him we weren't really shooting. So he didn't buy that. So I just needed more security that night. And they didn't bother us, I guess eventually he just accepted it. This was not a union job and that he wasn't going to be a beneficiary at some level. This was not even a film production. Well, it was, it was. Some of the footage is actually on our website. Oh, okay. I got you. Got you. But so there was some film, but really this was kind of a, it was a stunt to get people to come to your trailer to see your shoes. And by the way, how did they know to come there? Did you like paint Kenneth Cole productions on the side? We did. There was a banner outside of the truck. And I would stand there and stand with stand there. And we would kind of, you know, wave to people and then we saw every buyer in New York. And after the first few days, people, it became apparent. People heard about it. And then it was it, by the way, there's a phone booth on that corner. So I had committed to the factory to buy 40,000 per shoes. But I refused to commit to which specifically, which ones, but I told them I would let them know as the show was happening. So, you know, I gave a little more red, a little more in the lower heel, less of the blue, more of the red. So I was calling from the phone booth at lots of quarters in my park and changing and adjusting the supply chain as we were selling the shoes. We get delivery in four to six weeks, which was unheard of, but we'd committed to do this. And I've air-fraid it, flew everything in. How much shoes, by the way, did you sell at the show? I sold maybe 40,000 per at the show. Wow. So you could call these factories from just the corner of what was the street? 6 and 56. 6 and 56 in Manhattan and say, hey, yeah, we need those shoes. We need 20,000. We need 30,000, whatever it was. Well, no, wait, I'd already committed to the numbers. I was just adjusting them. And I was, I was spiring and believing and dreaming that I could sell all these shoes. Right. And we did. We sold all of the shoes. After that show, was there buzz about Kenneth Cole, this hot young designer, or not quite yet? I think there was, in very brief, people wanted 10 pair. We don't really agree to sell me. And the more we said no, the more they wanted it. And we got a lot of good editorial. So, what we dealt gave me my own shoe department on the main four. In 1983? In 1983. Wow. With a niche department, which was your name on the wall and everything? With my name on the wall. Did your dad see that? He did. He was very proud. And he came to the truck, to the trailer and, and saw it. And you know, we lost them a couple of years after that. Unfortunately, he didn't really get to see how the business evolved over the years. But he was very proud. What was so different about the shoes you were making at the time? Why would it so hot? Well, they were different. And street fashion was really starting to happen at that point in time. In a fashion up until that point had emanated from the runways of modern Paris. But now, it was all, it was coming from the streets and it was coming from people like Calvin. Calvin Klein, yeah. Calvin Klein and I think Donna Kimberley. Donna Karen. But that was about the time that the rise of the New York designers and American designers became a credible pursuit. And people were, they like the shoes that people would, they bought them and I had them flown in from Italy. And I would then turn around and ship them before I had to pay for them. And then I got paid before I had to pay the factories. So I had positive cash for like three months into business. But I mean, the actual design of the shoes, was it the price point or was it the design? What was it that? I mean, do they look very different from other things in the market at the time? They were very different from other things in the market. They were at a very distinctive look, a very high heel pointy toe pump and then also a foot pump. And then it was a convertible boot that had the ability to become, you could wear it at any height and it was made in Canvas. And in the early 80s, denim was, you know, it became a big fashion statement at about that. Even in shoes? Well, but denim friendly footwear. Some of the shoes were made in stone washed canvas which looked like denim. And then some of them were in in stone washed suede, which also kind of looked like what people were dressing at the time. And I think people just, they liked it because it was new and different. But it was, we were going through our interestingly down turn in the economy in the 80s. Yeah. And it was a slow down. Yeah. It was a recession. So, and then in tough times, I've always said, are the greatest opportunities because people, you know, when things are good, people want to just do what they're doing and do more of it. And it's only when things are difficult that they looking to kind of reinvent and reengage. So, you know, in tough times, the shoes were different. There was nothing like them in the market place. And people were intrigued and everybody felt they should have some. So, we got off to a really great start. So, where were you getting your ideas from? I often would go out at night. These are also the Studio 54 days. So, I would go to the nightclubs and I would kind of get a drink and I'd sit in a little corner and I'd see what people would wear when they were trying to look their best for whoever it was. They were trying to dress for. And I learned also that what are they wearing, but what do they wish they could be wearing? And, you know, people have to choose from what the universe of it exists. So, I had to be aware of what existed in the market, not so that I could make what existed, but how I could make what doesn't. I read a quote of yours talking about your early years where you said, "Initially, I would make what I thought people should wear." But then, I realized that I needed to make what people wanted, which is sort of the opposite of what Steve Jobs used to say. He would say, "You don't know customers and consumers don't know what they want. They need to be told what they want." My job isn't to tell people what they should wear. my job is to give them what they want but not how they expect it and I have to be sensitive to it and I have to interpret it and I have to give it to them in a way that doesn't exist in the competitive universe but I need to listen better and the best salesman I learned early on were not the best speakers they were the best listeners. So essentially by 1984 you've got this brand here in Bloomingdale's and I'm assuming that now your customers are mainly big department stores mainly in New York are you starting to sell nationally by 1984? I'm selling nationally in 1982 I'm selling I mean they're eyes wow my first season I sold I remember I sold Fred Seagull in California I sold Bergdorf's in New York I we sold most of the better stores in the country you know we worked very hard to and Sam was a great salesman and we worked very hard to get the product placed in the best stores and the company it's first year in business did five million dollars it's unbelievable I think about a year in send went off to start his own thing or he left to go work for I think a spree or something right uh correct but you guys left on good terms we left on good terms so you I guess pretty soon you know early on in the within the first two years you branch out you you move beyond just women's shoes you go to men's shoes you go into women's handbags and leather goods presumably because you thought there was demand for this right yeah I started with women's shoes and at the time there's a company called Nine West has started about the same time that we share and they were making and selling a lot more shoes quickly than we were and I had a choice I could there was clearly an opportunity to make more shoes and sell them to more people or as opposed to the one I took which just to sell similar accessories to the same person I was selling to but I was trying to sell the coolest person on in town and there's only so many of them and I knew that if I had to if I was going to sell more shoes I was in very beginning to change the my relationship with the customer and I was going to have to be a little less cool and produce maybe them in a little more accessible manner which means that you had to offer a lower price point I would offer a little lower price point and there would be a little less extreme in their design and execution and I could have done that but instead I chose to keep the essence of the brand the way it was and create more products for the same person and then not that much later including the male compliment to the woman's shoes which is myself so I made shoes for me shoes I wish I was there yeah what I often say is I put myself in the customer's shoes to try to get them to want to put themselves in mind let me ask you about men's shoes right because it seems intuitive that it would be easier to design men's shoes because they're more straight forward is that true it was for me because I would put myself in my shoes I would look at it I could much more critically look at it and say is this this is shoe need to exist in the world I mean even in 1984 the designs of men's shoes of course are different than they are today but there's some pretty substantial similarities right I mean they had loafers you had lace-ups you had chaka boots and Chelsea boots I mean those existed in 1984 but fashion men's fashion was just you know finding it stride at that time you know up until that point men basically had suits and then they had torn chains and t-shirts and sneakers that's what guys had that's what every guy we were like we wore the same uniform right and at that point people were almost being encouraged and motivated to express themselves and that there was a that vehicle was first really becoming accessible one of the things that you would eventually become really well known for in some ways has well known for us your shoes was cause of bring attention to AIDS AIDS crisis and I think in the mid-80s you were already really getting involved in this because of one of your designers David Pregnoli was the first person that you knew who was HIV positive and eventually died of AIDS was it was it David who inspired you to become involved in AIDS awareness so David didn't because David didn't never really acknowledged to me that he would never he never even told me at least but but I knew he did and and and this was and again the mid-80s I I adored David David actually was an interior designer was he actually designed the trailer I think I had originally met it from Sam I think Sam knew him he designed the trailer for you in 1982 yeah he designed the inside of the trailer and he designed the inside of our showroom and David was a gay man in New York and that was you know that wasn't something you were in your sleeve in those days and what I would do at the beginning of every season is I would essentially as I said put myself in people shoes and I would try what is on people's minds what are people thinking about yeah and and in many ways I was it was me I was speaking to myself you know what was consuming me what was on my mind you were thinking about AIDS and HIV HIV was consuming all of us it was in everybody's minds but very few people's lips at the time and it was killing countless amount of of mostly gay men in New York and San Francisco and big cities and intravenous drug users and then but people were looking to talk about it because the stigma was so devastating so I always sought to find ways to make what I was doing as meaningful as I could and are arguably and I say this today shoes are in and of themselves are not nobody needs what we sell if every shoe store in America closed its doors tomorrow at 12 o'clock hardly in American we go barefoot for 15 years and I knew early on inherently that it needed to be about more than how much money we were making and HIV was affecting our industry in a disproportionate way and and people weren't talking about it because they couldn't so I decided to do a campaign and and also at the time contextually I had all these initiatives happening we had we are the world hands across America right live aid world aid far made though and they were all about hunger so there was this blooming black cloud and no one people were were not comfortable talking but eight talking about eight sure and people would want to be around you people were afraid that they would catch it people were afraid on that time and you could potentially lose your job you can lose your neighbors you could get health insurance you could lose everything that you valued so it was a frightening time and maybe because I wasn't a member of one of those at risk communities I wasn't as fearful as others and many women actually time were some of the biggest advocates and I committed myself to it and and quickly quickly what I was doing was becoming meaningful to me and and just to be clear I mean you launched an ad campaign to raise awareness around AIDS and and I mean for people to remember that was like a really iconic ad right I mean it showed up on all these magazines yeah you had all these fashion models and they were just really becoming icons at that time and being celebrated so I asked Andy Lee what's I was the little you know up and coming designer but I asked Andy if she would do it and she would take photographs if she would on a pro bono basis so I didn't know how many money if she would help me do a campaign to a photograph and she agreed to do it and then we reached out to all of the top models in industry like they were thinking the mid 80s were the top models at the time at the time Christy Brinkley was one of them and Christy did it by the way and she was eight and a half months pregnant and Christy hadn't been seen publicly in I don't know for five months but she a lot of stuff be photographed for this day at eight and a half months pregnant as was Paulina and Beverly Johnson Paulina Pereskova, Pereskova, I remember all these supermodels for me and John Seven John Beverly Johnson and John Severance and Kelly Emberg so everybody said yes and they would just be photographed what so they were the concept what the campaign was the message was for the future of our children right and the notion was we were talking about stigma how do you talk about what nobody would speak about and that was there was this silence that was deafening and then I had to decide what they were going to wear and I figured I can't put them in my shoes because then this campaign loses its purpose it's going to look like it's I'm self-serving it and I didn't want to send that message to any anyone send it to the viewer or anybody else so I said you know I'm not going to put my shoes I'm not going to bring anybody else's so they'd be barefoot and that at the end of the day turned out to be even a bigger statement they were barefoot they were not even wearing shoes they were not wearing shoes and and and how so the idea was to take out ads and like publications and so I wasn't sure how we were going to do it I had a very small budget and there was no such thing as pro bono advertising also in those days so we got all the models to be to do it and then with children and these were two groups that were not stigmatized everybody appreciated beautiful woman and we left all children we didn't have a problem with them until they had a grew up and had opinions so we had this beautiful photograph that Annie took of all these women and the message was for the future of our children and then in small let us support each research and it didn't say Kenneth Cole anywhere on it it said Kenneth Cole in a list of sponsors and wow and see you really weren't like not this was like it was a gamble I wanted people to know I was behind I wanted them though I used my limited fragile resources for this but I'm not. I think, but I was very careful. My role to Arshagra was creative and bring conceptual and bringing everybody together. And that campaign in many ways changed me. It changed the man, it changed the brand, and it changed my business in a profound way. - Because all of a sudden, that you became more focused on a social mission. - We became important. What we were doing just became important. And it became meaningful. - I'm looking at that ad. - It's so cool, just seeing all these young faces, Christie Brinkley and Andy McDowell and Pauline Aporskov and all these kids. - It's really cool. - Yeah. - So at the time, so I now had the message, I had now had the ad. And I ran and I started calling all the magazines to see if anybody would run this for us because I didn't have the budget to. And I had, everybody had done everything pro bono and that wasn't really what you did in those days. That notion didn't really exist out there. So, the models did it, Andy did it, the studio was donated, hair make up, I think was donated. Even had cars donated to people, pick people up. And the magazines, I think the message ran in 23 magazines, which was a lot. And at the end, and then once it ran in a couple, we had a lot of other people calling for it, often to run it for free. - You also, I'm curious because this was sort of a foundational moment for your career. And for you personally, I mean, you would become the chair of Amphar, the foundation for AIDS research, which you helped raise hundreds of millions of dollars for. You would go on to be involved in other causes that are quote unquote liberal or considered to be liberal and you are openly liberal. Talk about that. I mean, is it, you know, some companies and some business leaders kind of hide their politics? And I mean, not only do you kind of wear it on your sleeve, you're married into the Cuomo family. You got married in 1987 to the sister of the current governor of New York and daughter of the former governor of New York. I mean, did you ever think maybe I shouldn't be political because I could hear it my brand or was it like a non-negotiable? - But you know, Guy, I have been asked that question over the years and I tell people that I'm not political, that my messages are not political messages. They're social messages or maybe human messages, but they're not social messages. That have been politicized. But I don't talk about politics. And I mean, I have on one or two occasions 'cause I couldn't help myself. But for the most part, I have made a very exerted effort for 30 plus years not to talk about things that I, or certainly in ways that I thought was political. - Right. So your business is really kind of growing in the '80s and really your distribution model is still through big retailers, right? 'Cause this is still the heyday of department stores and where lots of people got their clothes. And I guess in like '94, you decide to actually make a change to actually really focus on direct consumer sales. What happened in '94? Was there like a catalyst that sort of inspired you to start to open up shops? What happened in '94 was the landscape changed. When I started my business, there was maybe 70 or 80 departments through a change in the United States. All of a sudden, 10 years later, this may be 15 or 20. - Consultation. - After consolidations and some bankruptcies. And then I woke up one day and I think if I recall, Campo was trying to buy federated department stores and these are two stores that were in and of themselves leveraged and questionable solvent. And I said to myself that these guys are gonna need to find economies because they don't exist today. And they can't sell any cheaper. So they're gonna have to buy better and it was just likely gonna mean is they're gonna take out the middle man and I'm the middle man and I didn't like the way that felt. - Why were you the middle man? I mean, you were selling your products to them. - Yeah, but they could buy it directly from factories and then take out the middle man. And then no longer sell Kenneth Cole just buy your shoes and not sell your label. - They buy similar shoes under their own labels and I'm not in business anymore, which was happening to some people. So unless my brand was a destination that I had no reason to exist in those stores and I wouldn't, I didn't, I believed. - You didn't think that they would just continue to buy Kenneth Cole shoes and sell them? - I didn't. I thought at a certain point, they're going to eliminate the middle man if they could. So I needed to open stores. I needed to grow my presence, increase my marketing. And I also knew that I couldn't fund that. I wasn't doing to fund that. - So just to be clear, you had to fund that. The that is building stores. - Building stores. - I'm just trying to understand that 'cause the value proposition was your designs. They couldn't steal your designs. But there were other designs. And if you don't see my designs, like a train the forest, I'm only as good as you know me to be. - When we come back in just a moment, why Kenneth decides to take the company public and why he takes a big financial loss to go private again? Stay with us. I'm Guy Ross, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR. (upbeat music) When I pull up to a gas pump to fill my car, I'm not thinking about chemistry or engineering. I'm thinking about getting in, filling up, and getting on with my day. And it reminds me a little bit of the founders I talked to on this show. Because the best ones obsess over things their customers will never see. Tiny details and visible improvements, relentless iteration. 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Check out How I Built This, the book available wherever you buy your books. (gentle music) Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Ross. So it's 1994 and Kenneth Cole decides he no longer wants to depend on selling his shoes through department stores. What he wants is a direct relationship with his customers. So how do I become present where I need to be, when I need to be, to the degree I need to be. You can't do that without controlling ultimately the distribution of having your own stores. I felt at that time. So you need the cash. You need money to make this happen. I needed the cash. Yeah, I wasn't gonna put myself in any more debt than I needed to be. And I decided by going public was the best way to do that. And then very soon you go public and you ask the public for funding, there is a question everybody asks which is use of proceeds, what are you gonna do with the money? Yeah. And I had a very clear use of proceeds. You were gonna expand like crazy. I was gonna grow the business as responsibly, as quickly as responsibly as I knew how. But it isn't, 'cause on your own, you've taken the company from a $5 million operation in your first year to a $85 million operation by 1994, which is impressive but not enough, 'cause that's revenue, that's sales and revenue, that's not enough cash or profit to fund the ambitions that you had. You had to go public or presumably raised a lot of money in that IPO. Now you get the cash to expand. So what was the expansion plan? So the expansion plan was to open stores in important markets, which are aspirational markets. In Chicago and Los Angeles, at Miami and Boston. And we systematically went down that road. How did that do? I mean did people, I mean by the late '90s, were people flocking to cancels coal stores? I don't know if I'd use the word flocking. But we were, this stores were all profitable and they were driving customer engagement and the brand was doing better wherever it existed. It did better in the department stores and-- Because people would see the brick and mortar stores and that was like an advertisement. Yeah and then there was people, I remember having a conversation with Nordstrom at the time and they were a big customer and they were challenging the fact that we had all these stores and I would show them quite a five, we have every mall that we had a store, where they had a store, they did better with our shoes than Nordstrom's. that did not have a chemical store and I think because there's people that wanted to buy from Nordstrom or from Boomingdale's or from SACS or whoever it was and they're going to do that and I just helped create a Keshe and elevate the brand equation on their behalf so everybody won. Do you know it's very similar in a strange way to to the story of Foot Locker. I interviewed the former CEO of Foot Locker Kenics and he told me that whenever there was a Nike store opened up in a mall actually it increased Foot Locker's business. Right. Yeah I put it there. Very interesting. You would think that the opposite. So so you had these stores and by the way were I mean where are you licensing your name at this point in the late 90s or not yet? I was. You were licensing your name to other price apparel, men's dress shirts, things like that. I don't I don't think I was doing apparel in dress shirts yet but I was doing for sure I had done women's handbags and then I had done how to wear and I think I had done men's ties and a couple of things. Right. But was your brand I mean your reputation was kind of aspirational right so you called higher and respirational what would have you but when you started to license your name did that have an impact on on how the brand was perceived because some of those products would show up at like TJ Maxx. Well it didn't initially because that wasn't the case initially but I made it one of the biggest deals I had ever made as a company. We licensed women's wear to Liz Coydeborn and they agreed to huge minimum sales levels actually 250 million dollars a year which is crazy high numbers. That was a guarantee that they would pay. Guaranteed by the by the fifth year of our relationship. That's a great deal. It is but until you realize that they had to make the product more accessible more accessible we price more accessible we fit designed so it's fits of a broader customer base and it's priced to appeal to a broader customer base which is what they wanted to do at the time and I was as a running a public company I was blinded by demands and encouragement to drive sales and get shareholders they wanted to make money. That was what we signed up for as chairman of public companies. I'm sensing a hint of regret in that deal with Liz Coydeborn because it sounds like maybe it started to affect the reputation of the brand. Again it was it was a good short-term decision but I didn't have perfect foresight and over time it did the brand value so it did take the product down market and as a fashion company you have to keep reinventing yourself and you need to maintain some level of aspiration otherwise that's you have no reason to exist at a certain point so the brand was a little bit of a steam when we did that. Meantime you reach a market cap of a little more than half a billion dollars in 2006 and then in the subsequent years we begin to hit the financial crisis and I guess you decide at the time to step down as a CEO was it did you decide to step down because you felt like somebody could better manage the crisis or or were you did you feel were you under pressure from shareholders what what was the decision behind that. If I recall I stepped down at the same time that I agreed to be the chairman of Amphar. I got you okay I got so I had nothing to do with the financial crisis. No it wasn't the crisis but I also felt I needed the company needed somebody who could be a little bit more accessible. Focused right and more focused and could be all in all the time. So you had kind of stepped away from running the day-to-day operations for a few years you had a different CEO Jill Granoff and during that time the revenue went down like 30% or more and you decided to return to the CEO role I think around 2011 I mean I think I know why but did you feel like you had to come I mean it's like Howard Schultz came back to Starbucks after being away from it for so long. Did you feel like you had to regain control and and try and bring it back to life. I felt I needed to fix the business and it wasn't working the way it was. We've gotten too big we're selling some of the wrong product to the wrong people. We were licensing to people maybe we shouldn't have been had maybe the wrong product indoors it shouldn't have been in because invariably that's what the public markets will do to companies like ours. But you know what was happening is we as an executive team were spending most of our time talking about how we're going to talk about the results rather than trying to fix them. You were trying to figure out how to spin things. That's yeah that's what you do and how do you make what you're doing sound as good as you can and rather than how do you make it better. So being public is not you know it's a sort of place to be unless you need the public markets to finance and or run your business and we needed to get smaller to get bigger we needed to shrink the business step back and we couldn't do that as a public company partially because of my personal visibility. But as a private company you can do those things so we felt we needed to go private and I needed to make that happen. So you decide to come back to the company with the goal of taking your company private and for anyone who doesn't understand this and I don't fully understand it is very hard to take a company private once it's gone public is you essentially you got to buy back the shares from shareholders it means you have to raise a lot of money to do that and that's very challenging I mean I think how did you go about doing it? I don't remember exactly step by step but we did what most people do and we hired a law firm and we retained bank advisors and I spoke to a lot of people in the industry and you know actually the process getting here is I spoke to all these very smart people that I knew and many of them were friends and I asked them you know if I totally tried to overhaul the business and put in a whole new board and restructure and they all said to me well that's great but you can't do this public company and then they'd say well and by the way why are you public and this is why because I don't know how to not be public well they said well just it shouldn't be that hard and they you know looking at your balance sheet so because I it always maintained and held on to a reasonable amount of the shares so we realized that upon analysis I could do this without adventure capital firm because to do it with them many will argue it's harder it's harder to exist in that structure than it is as a public company so you could do it with the shares that you already had with the shares I had and traditional bank financing right and and from what I understand you you bought the company back at 15 and a quarter per share which value the company like 280 million which which was hundreds of millions of dollars less than it was at its peak so it was there I mean I imagine there were some shareholders who were mad about this who didn't want this to happen you know when we announced that we were going to do this we announced it at nine o'clock when the New York Stock Exchange opened we put out an announcement we had a quest action suit filed and on our desk by ten o'clock an hour later so you have this built-in process where you know these law firms just file suit and then they build the quest after they start a quest action suit then they find class and they yeah sue you without knowing any of the facts because that's irrelevant and they will attach them later on as part of the process you've been quoted as calling these lawyers file these lawsuits extortionists and you may not be wrong here but but just just play devil's advocate for for a moment I mean could you make the argument that some shareholders were you know legitimately pissed off because they bought the shares for you know $20 or you know $18 and now they're going to lose $3 a share but if I if we offer $15 and the stock at the time I was 13 so we offer premium up to 15 to 20 percent so there was a benefit everybody was realizing and then the process was going on so long we lowered our offer because the value of the company had gone down and we had basically said to the marketplace if you and I had also said I'm happy to do this and what's going to do a vote and it's called the majority of the minority so I won't even vote my shares because my shares were more than 50 percent of the outstanding vote so my shares will not vote and the public shares will and if the majority of the minority shares win then we the deal will not go through and if it does then it will and we'll have we'll accommodate that and it did at the end of the day the lawsuit the quest action suit continued and over time we prevailed but it must have been costly and stressful it was costly but it's part of the process it's part of the way you have no choice to do that and and it was one of the best days of my professional life when you went private so you go you take the company private and now you're unshackled I guess all of a sudden you didn't have to think about short-term profits you could focus on the brand you could focus on long-term strategy and it was your company I think you I think you're still on about 80 percent of it Well, at that time, I owned 80% now I own 100. We had, I brought in some outside, some of these friends who advised us and invited them to buy in at the same price that I did, and they formed an advisory board. And I should also mention that I think not long after that, you start to close down your stores most of your stores. We systematically started to close the stores. And the prior management team had opened up a lot of out of stores and places where we shouldn't have been. We had like 63 outlet stores across the US. And the model had changed and we should not have been in that business. And outlet stores do outlet stores also kind of devalue a brand. I think they do. But also a change in that period of time is the internet. The outlet stores were a way to bring value to the customer. But the internet does it effortlessly. There's a home market place that aggregates the best existing product wherever it is and makes it available. Wherever it is supplied to wherever it is demand. So the outlet model, in my mind anyway and at that time, was obsolete. And I wanted to make the brand a better brand. And I felt we should not be in these stores. So we systematically went about closing up. You closed virtually all of your stores. I think today, today is just what I think just one or two? It is one story up until about six years ago we had 100 stores in the US. I mean, completely overhauled this model that you had. I mean, the reason you went public was to expand the stores and expand the brand with stores and brick and mortar. And the reason we went private is to close them. But really it's now you on the line. It's your personal financial situation. Because if at this point you want 100% of the company, if it goes bust, you're broke. You've assumed the risk. I'm assuming all the risk. Yes, that's correct. Which is comforting truthfully at some level. Because when you're driving somebody else's car, you drive more carefully because it's somebody else's car. But you can be a hair more reckless if it's your own. Not that that's-- or you can take more risks. And you can explore new pads that others might not otherwise. You step down as CEO for the second time and then brought in Mark Schneider to run the company and the brand in 2015. And together you kind of focused on a rebranding, like rebranding Kenneth Cole. What was-- because you had a bunch of different things at Kenneth Cole reaction and different parts of Kenneth Cole, what was the rebrand supposed to signal to consumers in 2015? Well, what we wanted to do is to-- you can have a label and that could be a lot of products that have your name on it. But if you're going to have a brand, you have to deliver a consistent point of view at every point of execution. And that's the hardest part about doing it, especially over as many years as we've been doing it. And so we're on a lot of different products today. We licensed the brand in 20 summer products. And I've been a licensed sort of 25 years. And it's probably something we do relatively well. But I think the brand definitely is deluded in the process at some level, because-- and you have to every day make very difficult decisions. And every single business decision has financial implications. And it also has brand implications. But right now, we're running and operating the shoe business ourselves, everything else. Until we were operating the coding businesses too, until recently, and then we licensed them out. So right now, we're running shoes. Do you still think of your shoes in that same way as operational? I mean, I'm looking at the website. These are not fast fashion. I mean, you get a pair of your women's heels are still 100 and some of them $160, $170. So they're not designer prices. But they're not the low end, either. The goal is-- I don't think people buy price. They buy value. And people are in the long time ago, you pay a dollar for something. You never wear it. You pay too much. So how do you create a product that looks good that's comfortable that we'll look and feel good today as well as tonight? And that's the challenge. And that's what we try to do every day. I want to go back to the rebranding side, right? Because you had a very clear idea what the brand was when you launched. And it, of course, evolved, because brow brands evolved. But when you rebranded, who did you want your customer to become? Who did you imagine your customer to be? The goal was to-- my mind, I wanted it to be me. I wanted it to be-- I wanted to want every one of the shoes and we wanted to wear every one of the shoes. I wanted it to be my wife and people who I think have great taste. And so was it realistic? Was it a little aspirational? Did I go a little far too fast? Maybe. But I still always believe in aiming higher, knowing that even if you come up a little short, you're in a better place than you are. Are you still involved in designing the shoes? I am not as involved on a day-to-day basis, but I ultimately see everything and prove everything. What is a shoe that gets you excited right now that you guys are making? It's something that does everything for you that checks all the boxes. That today post-COVID, I talk about a PC-- what's the PC world, which is post-coronavirus. And what are going to be our expectations and what's our appetite? I don't think there is a closet anywhere that today is in full. So we have to give you a reason to make room in your closet, which is in and of itself. And it's very attribute-driven. And right now, I'm very focused on the most important new accessory, which is one that nobody has in their closet right now, and everybody knows they need. And even if they have it, they know it could be better. The mask. It's the mask. I see on your website, they're nice masks. So we're trying to make the perfect mask. It doesn't just look good. It has six layers of protection. It is temperature control. It's waterproof. So that is a kind of getting on for resources to put behind that right now. One of the benefits of our show, certainly this year, has been a source of comfort for our audience, our listeners, who are running businesses. Because it's been a tough year for pretty much everybody unless you're running an online productivity software that everyone seems to be using remotely, right? And I have to imagine it's been a tough year for Kenneth Cole, because it's been a tough year for the entire fashion and retail industry full stop. How are you building resilience into your company this year? Because am I right? It must be a slower year. It is a very slow-- it's a very difficult year, guy. And we're better off the most because a lot of our-- the business model is on contractual relationships and licenses. Right. So this is some level of a short income. But this isn't sustainable. We need to partner with our licensees and we do. And the issue business struggles into the degree is how do you vary boys as much of your businesses you can? So you don't have all this massive overhead. Fortunately, we had closed stores. And fortunately, we had made other decisions as well, too, to become a little bit leaner. And our goal is to become as agile, relevant, and profitable. Those are the kind of the three boxes we look to check. And we're trying to stay a step ahead. Kat, if you earlier this year launched a new initiative called the Mental Health Coalition to raise awareness about mental health and try to move the stigma around it and help people get access to mental health services. First of all, we haven't talked about this. Have you ever been depressed or gone through mental health challenges? You know, I don't think I do. And I don't think I did. I shouldn't say I don't think I did. It wasn't what kind of set me off at down this path. But so many people in my life are living and struggling with this every day. And then I came to realize maybe I am as well in different ways. I've been in a perpetual fog since COVID happened. Yeah, yeah. WHO says that one in four people will live with mental health conditions in their lifetime. We say it's four and four. We say it's everybody. If it isn't you, it's somebody you love. It's somebody in your family, in your community, or in the workplace, but we're all living with it. In fact, today post COVID, I think it's five out of four people. I think it's also your pets. I think it's just so overwhelmed us. And I don't think people have a clue how devastating this is going to be for extensive periods of time. But so we, you know, we as a company were working with NAMI, I'll tell you just how this came about. My daughter also Amanda kind of encouraged this and it's very important to her. NAMI has an initiative on anti-stigma-free companies, as we always look to do. But what is NAMI, sorry, I'm not familiar with NAMI. I'm sorry, nationalized mental illness. They're the largest grassroots mental health service provider in the country. So they say to us, will you help us with an anti-stigma campaign like you did with HIV? And that stigma for mental health is bad today as it was with HIV 20 years ago. So we work on a whole new narrative. I asked five psychiatrists, just at a curiosity for a definition of depression and I got five different answers. And the reality is none of them are empowering. Every one of them are diminishing. So how do people talk about their circumstances? And you wonder why two-thirds of the people with mental health issues are in the shadows because they don't have a narrative they can resort to. So let's create that. And let's build the community so we go out and we reach out to the American Foundation of the Suicide Prevention and the Anxiety and Depression and Associations of America, bring change to mine, Brain and Behavior Institute, trial, mine, crisis, text line, Jet Foundation, mental health America, every one of them says we're all in. We built this massive coalition of mental health providers and then we now set out to create this narrative. So it's an inspiring journey that I've embarked upon and it's become a big part of what I'm doing. And an impact, I think, and a privilege that I have to be able to have such extraordinary organizations and individuals who've agreed to collaborate, to hold hands and to work together on this. Yeah. Ken, when you think about your journey, starting out, you know, kind of helping out your dad and then you really had incredible success with this business. Not only financial success, but cultural impact to me became a name, a designer, talked about with Donna Karen and Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren and Kenneth Cole, all the same breath, pretty amazing achievement alone. Very, very kind guy. Thank you. Do you attribute your success to how hard you worked and how smart you worked or do you think more of it just happened because you got lucky? Well, my father used to say to me that the harder I work, the luckier I get. But I don't think it's just brute, you know, working hard. I think it's also having a sense of what people want and putting yourself in their shoes. And I work hard. I'm very emotionally vested in what I do and I love it. And I guess the time comes that I don't. It'll be harder to keep it going. Are you comfortable calling yourself a designer now after 35 years? I am. I still say I'm a shoe dog. That's an expression people in the shoe industry say, and I embrace it still. I mean, you are still a young man. You got a lot of life left in you, maybe, you know, 30, 40 years who knows with genetic engineering, maybe 50 or 100. But at some point you won't be around. Right. What do you think should happen to Kenneth Cole? Do you see it as a hundred year brand? Do you see it? I don't know. I think if the brand can have a role today, if it can make an impact, and it has a reason to exist tomorrow, then so be it. The world is very fragile and people don't buy brands today. I don't believe. I think people recognize today that they are their own brands and every day they wake up and they curate their own brands on their social media. And they don't just curate the content. They also curate the audience. So, and I'm just an accessory. I'm just, I co-brand with them, and I hopefully they will allow me to be part of their brand. So if my brand is a reason to exist, for how long it does, then that's a privilege, and it's something I'll forever be grateful for. We have to earn the right to exist. I think I have to 30 some ideas. I've earned the right to be considered, but every day we have to earn the right to be chosen. And that's all we can do. That's Kenneth Cole, the founder of Kenneth Cole. And by the way, remember how he registered Kenneth Cole as a film production company in the early days? And how they started to make a film called Birth of a Shoe Company? Well, you can actually see clips from that film on the company's YouTube page, where you will also notice a young, lanky, and bearded shoe salesman who happens to be Kenneth Cole. What kind of shoes are you wearing right now? I'm actually wearing Kenneth Cole sneakers. Nice. Assuming your shoe closet is only Kenneth Cole. It's not only Kenneth Cole, but it's all that I've met too. Got it. Fair enough. Because I think about my own shoe closet, I've got six pairs of chakoboots. I'm sorry, I have that guy. I've had Kenneth Cole too, of course. I respect you, no less. I'm wearing Birkenstocks right now, just so you know. Oh, you're pushing it, but I'm thinking. And thanks so much for listening to the show this week. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can also write to us at [email protected]. And if you want to follow us on Twitter, it's @how I built this or @guyRaz. And on Instagram, it's @guy.Raz. This episode was produced by J.C. Howard with music composed by Rumpteen Arabliwi. Thanks also to Liz Metzger, Derek Gales, Julia Karney, Niva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Farah Safari. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This. This is NPR.